‘Own part of the match’ – Geir Bakke’s revitalising Lillestrøm rebuild – tactical analysis

After suffering relegation to OBOS-Ligaen in 2019, 2017 Norwegian Cup champions Lillestrøm found themselves in dire need of a rebuild last year. Geir Bakke, who had only just rejected the advances of Rosenborg  who were also in need of a rebuild, though on a much smaller scale to Lillestrøm  was ultimately appointed to the Kanarifugla hot-seat for the 2020 campaign, tasked with leading Lillestrøm back to Norway’s top flight.

The 51-year-old coach succeeded last season, guiding Lillestrøm to a second-place finish in OBOS-Ligaen. Now, with much of the relegation-suffering side of 2019 having been transferred away from Åråsen Stadion, Bakke’s Lillestrøm, which features some remnants of the side Bakke inherited but has been largely constructed with free transfers, loanees, and Lillestrøms youth academy graduates, is sitting in third place on the Eliteserien table, six points behind table-toppers Molde, with a game in hand.

Despite not being able to spend much money on incoming transfers at all, Bakke is succeeding with his Lillestrøm rebuild and Kanarifugla look far closer to the side they were in 2017 now than they did two years ago when the prestigious club, who have gone head to head with the likes of Eredivisie giants Ajax, Scottish Premiership greats Rangers, along with EPL and La Liga combatants in European competition in the past, dropped out of Norway’s top flight for the first time in over 40 years. Speaking recently about his and his sides aims for the future, Bakke declared that Lillestrøm must own part of the match picture moving forward, indicating his desire to get his team imposing their will on games.

In this tactical analysis piece, we’ll analyse some key elements of Bakke’s Lillestrøm tactics and philosophy. We’ll look at how the 51-year-old’s side build their attacks and how they try to finish them, how they set up defensively, how they perform in transition phases, and we’ll provide analysis of some of the main areas in which Bakke’s promising Lillestrøm outfit differs from the Kanarifugla side that suffered relegation under Jörgen Lennartsson just two years ago.

Build-up and ball progression

More often than not this season, Bakke’s Lillestrøm side have lined up in a 3-4-2-1 shape in possession which transforms into a 5-4-1 out of possession. Lillestrøm are not a heavily possession-based side, nor were they a heavily possession-based side when they were relegated in 2019. They ended the 2019 Eliteserien campaign with the second-lowest average possession percentage (43.9%) of any team in Norway’s top-flight, while this season they’ve currently got the sixth-lowest average possession percentage (47.5%) of any Eliteserien side.

Bakke’s move to Åråsen Stadion hasn’t seen a majorly dramatic shift in terms of ball retention. Although Lillestrøm have kept a little bit more of the ball this season so far than they did in 2019, in general, they still don’t spend a tonne of time on the ball. They tend to defend quite passively, allowing their opponents plenty of time on the ball, and they don’t always build their attacks patiently via short passes  often preferring to go long from the goalkeeper.

We see an example of how Lillestrøm generally look when playing it long from the ‘keeper in figure 1. Bakke likes his team to get compact, with lots of bodies positioned around the centre-forward who’ll have shifted over slightly to one side of the pitch  in this case, the right  and who’ll generally be the Lillestrøm ‘keeper’s target. This sees the narrow shape, oriented towards the right-wing with lots of bodies congregated around the centre-forward as seen in figure 1, get formed.

One notable movement, in particular, is that the wing-back on the opposite wing to the one Lillestrøms shape shifts towards  in this case, the left wing-back  pushes up and moves a lot more centrally than we’ll see him at any other point in the game. As Bakke wants his side to crowd the space around the target man to win the second ball, and thus wants his team’s shape to get very compact and narrow, he’s happy to sacrifice the coverage on the opposite wing to bolster his side’s presence in midfield and presence around the target man. This essentially turns Lillestrøms shape into a 4-3-2-1, as seen in figure 1.

Lillestrøms central midfielders and wing-backs are the main ‘ball-winn